I’ve been thinking about Philip Glass a lot this week, perhaps influenced by that New Yorker piece that also goes into reexamining him. While he’s certainly been important in my understanding of music, very few recordings hold up.

Out of the 40 or so discs I own only Einstein on Beach, Etudes for Piano, Music in Twelve Parts, Solo Piano, Violin Concertos and Symphony No. 8 seem relevant.

yeah this really isn't the case. I've never heard Reich do anything like Einstein on the Beach, or the songs on North Star, or Music in 12 Parts for that matter. Glass was doing mostly melodic variation, where Reich was all about groove, about rhythmic phasing and (fairly conventionally jazzy) harmonic progression. I think there was some point in the late 70s where Glass must have realized that he could continue doing his melodic variation stuff but tone it down to a point that non-art gallery attendees and PBS subscribers could appreciate, and his rep (and compositional rigor) got kind of trashed -- it's a shame, because there are still a lot of people who don't remember how awesome and unparalleled his best stuff was

I mostly went off Philip Glass a long time again, but over the past year I've occasionally heard bits of "Einstein on the Beach" on the radio (UNM's station) and it's almost been exciting me as much as it did when I was a young teenager. I think I need to get a copy of it again one of these days. (I made the mistake of buying a cassette copy years ago, which probably didn't help me to continute to love it.) So I think I need to rehabilitate him a little. "Einstein on the Beach," especially, remains pretty mind-blowing. I hesitate to say it, but I think it sounds like nothing else that came before. (I'm sure you can break it down and say this bit of melody sounds like this past composer or whatever, but overall it sounds like nothing else.

I produced this recording and need to correct one thing and also tell a bit about its creation.

The "Genre" that is listed here on Discogs whether selected by Discogs, BMG/RCA/Catalyst or any other entity that provided information about this CD, is wrong. It is labeled "electronic". It is completely the opposite. The music as played is based on 17th century mechanical technology. That was the point of using the organ that I will describe to the reader now.

I had thought that we would be using one of New York City's better organs; something that thundered and snarled. But once I had read the music and spoken to the organist Donald Joyce, I knew that just the opposite type of organ was required. There were only a few real "trackers" that is, fully mechanical organs, that could be found anywhere in New York State that also had the right accoustics surrounding it. I never expected to find our treasure in, of all places, a small town in Tennessee named Collegedale. It is located about 40 miles N/E of Chatanooga, TN, if that helps. Donald found our tracker in the Collegedale Church after getting a tip from a friend. Six months had passed before the discovery was made. It was the "Heiller Memorial Organ" made by Brombaugh. This instrument was hand built and required 48,000 man hours to complete both in the Brombaugh shop and the church itself. This tracker is a fully mechanical organ. It contains 4,861 pipes, 70 completely manual (mechanical) stops. The "stops" are 10 inch long pieces of 1 inch square wood with a handle attached that is located on the outside of the organ; one pulls or pushes them out or in to open or close a diffent set of selected pipes and ranks of pipes through which the air flows. The actual pitches are controlled from four (yes four) 56 note mechanical keyboards (also called manuals), and lastly there is a mechanical 30 pedal board for the lowest notes. Electricity is only used to power a blower that fills two wedge shaped bellows. So one can easily see this is about as far from an electronic instrument or sound as one can achieve from an organ.

During the recording in the Spring of 1993 we "set up" for two days prior to actually recording anything for posterity (I did keep all the practice hours on tape just in case, but they were never needed.) Getting all the requisite sounds from the organ meant that we all worked from 10PM to 6AM as the sun rose. While this was ultimately a bit exhausting, it paid off because we were far off in the woods, and no external noises interfered with our work. We used David Hewitt's large soundtruck with a full 32 track Neve mixing board. (His company, Remote Recordings is credited in many live TV events as well as CD recordings.)However, we used only 3 microphones throughout the entire process. The recording method was actually that of the early days of stereo when 3 tracks were all that could be lain down at any one time. Left, Middle, Right. We chose six newly refurbished Neumann M-50 microphones which gave us a very clear "sonic picture" of the organ, (no more than 3 were ever in use, the others were for backup purposes and were turned on at all times in case we had to suddenly "change out" a faulty main mic. We recorded from about 70 feet away from the organ at a height of approximately 30 feet.

Balances between the various registrations took a very long time to choose and to integrate into a whole and each change was compared to the previous one by having everyone listen back after we had recorded a few variations. This alone took a day and a half to coax out the sounds that we felt were best at each point in a given piece. We then recorded for three days. We rarely deviated from our previously chosen settings and thus those first two days were vital to having smooth sessions later on.

In post production we added nothing. There was very little editing needed. I will end this long saga by saying that this recording is not for every musical palate, that's certain. But speaking only for myself, I can now say because of the relatively recent resurrection of the 17th century tracker organ, we achieved true 21st century effects that are as engaging to the attentive listener as any other good music.

Does anybody know if he has an interest in mathematics? Obviously he is playing around with ratios between the left-hand and right-hand parts on his piano pieces and the various parts in his orchestral arrangements, but is this directly related to an interest in mathematics on his part? Sorry if this is a bit of a naive question...

The dates of the 'Einstein' revival tour are now confirmed (same link as above). I am so there, never thought I'd see this one in my lifetime. Been scouring Youtube for live footage of the original production but there doesn't seem to be any, which in a way is good. It's like the whole thing exists in some kind of dreamworld.

Any London PG fans with £100+ to spare, I can recommend the Einstein On The Beach production currently at the Barbican. This was a real gateway record for me as a teenager, Floyd->Tangerine Dream->Philip Glass->all sorts of weirdo shit, great to finally see it with the visuals at last.

just ... wow. Just, wow. I really honestly haven't stopped thinking about it ever since. It is so much fun. It is so beautiful. One of the greatest experiences of my entire life. If you can, go, go, GO!!!!

Saw this on Saturday, thought it was absolutely phenomenal - one of the best things I've ever seen. Might be worth seeing if the Barbican has returns rather than paying 100 quid for the few tickets left - we only paid 28 quid for our tickets, admittedly over a year ago.

Really changed how I think of certain parts of the opera, too - e.g. the prematurely air conditioned supermarket bit was amazing, but I've never noticed it that much on record.

I'm finally at a place where I can enjoy some glassworks & later stuff but glass is like...his early work is so convulsive & inventive & important & relentlessly focused and then suddenly he's not about phase & different conceptions of composition any more: he's a Composer for whom the singular focus of his earlier work yielded some melodic and strategic tools. still hard for me to deal with, the gulf between the Tomato records stuff and the almost pastoral, accessible stuff that came later. saw him twice back in the day, once at Dorothy Chandler and once at the Roxy, which was nuts - the early stuff he played at the Roxy, some selections from Einstein, had an effect comparable to a really loud metal band firing on all cylinders. Whereas the Glassworks stuff...is nice.

I have less against "nice" than I used to so it's cool, but it's weird to me that this real seismic shift in his strategies seems to be an asked-and-answered thing.

I like the weird sort of New Brucknerism he's come to on things like Symphony No. 8. Yes, it's worlds away from Music in 12 or even Koyaanisqatsi but there's something about it. You can really bask in this shit.